The parental controls are difficult to find but easy to use, and there are lots of options to choose from.

The Tab 2 is part of the Kurio family of tablets designed specifically for kids. It isn’t just for children though - multiple profiles and a full Android system means the whole family can use it.

As with most Kurio tablets, it comes with over 60 preloaded apps, a Kurio Genius filtering system to protect against inappropriate content, and a wide range of easy to use parental controls. It also features Kurio Motion to get kids up and moving.

Our experts and parents have tested the Kurio Tab 2 to help you decide if this is the right tablet for your child. Here’s what they thought:

Build quality

The Tab 2 is sleeker than it’s predecessor, which may be more appealing to older children as it feels a little less like a ‘kid’s tablet’. This does mean though that there is a little less protection against knocks and bumps.

The tablet feels sturdy though and the case is soft, flexible rubber. It also comes with a stand - a plastic piece that pops out and wedges into the case - although this might not be ideal for a child’s tablet as it could be easily lost.

Features

The camera, which lets you take photos or video clips, is available on the child profiles - it might not be made for a professional photographer, but it’s perfectly fine for kids. Selfies are popular with kids so it’s good to see that there is a front-facing camera too.

While there is a memory card slot this won’t hold apps and, with so much preloaded content, the internal storage could fill up quickly.

We recommend limiting screen time, so the battery life will last a play session no problem.

Example of camera quality

Viewing content on the Child profile

Content

There are over 60 free preloaded apps which can be good if you want to use the tablet straight out of the box. However, these do take up a lot of storage space and may not be what you want - for example, they may be targeted and younger children.

Set up

Out of the box, the tablet guides you through the main settings, such as connecting to your wi-fi and creating profiles. Once you have created a child's profile you can set the parental controls and hand the tablet straight over, already full of content to start exploring.

Do be aware however that when you first set up the tablet, you may need to wait for updates which can take a while.

During the set up process

The menu accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen

Ease of use

If you’re more familiar with other tablets, the Kurio can take some time to get used to. Finding areas such as the Settings, or where to download apps, is not particularly intuitive.

For example, you need to know that swiping up from the bottom will give you the home/back buttons when they disappear off of the screen, and swiping down from the top twice brings up the settings icon.

The children’s profile is a simplified, colourful version of the adult profile, with the home screen listing all of the apps they have access to in different categories (such as Favourites or Education).

Performance

The speed and responsiveness is okay, but certainly not great. When you turn the tablet on it takes a very long time to load (over 2 minutes), which is a lifetime for a child who just wants to play their favourite app. The touch screen is quite good for a low price tablet and we didn’t come across many issues with responsiveness.

Parental controls

The biggest issue with the parental controls is finding them! They are hidden away in a Kurio Genius widget on the parent profile, where you can find all the parental controls you are likely to need:

App management

Simply select or unselect apps you would like your child to have access to (once downloaded from the Google Store or the Kurio Store).

Time control

This allows you to set the number of hours each day that your child can use the tablet,and also set the times they can use it (for example, you can stop them using the tablet after 9pm).

Web access

This can be completely turned on or off, or filtered by type (such as social networking or online shopping). Adult content is automatically filtered and you can list specific websites to block or allow.

However, filters are never 100% reliable and when we tested this ourselves we did find that not all inappropriate content was blocked. We strongly advise you to be cautious when allowing your child access to the internet and monitor what websites they are visiting. In particular, search engines are very difficult to control so if you do want to give them internet access, you may want to consider turning these off (which is possible with the Tab 2) or guiding them towards child friendly search engines.

Further settings

You can also block or allow USB access as well as Google accounts (including access to the Play Store and other Google apps), and reset your child’s password.

The controls all use tick boxes and slider bars so they’re pretty easy to use, and you can change the settings for each individual child’s profile too.

The parental controls are accessed through a password protected parent profile, which you will need to set up before creating a child profile.

The parental control hub

The app management section

The time control section

The web access section

The Kidoz Store

Other features

Kurio Motion

TheTab 2 comes with the ability to play games by moving around in front of the camera. This is great in theory, but games like this are usually played on a large TV - the tablet’s 7 inch screen isn’t really big enough to see what you are doing.

Kidoz Store

This is a child-friendly app store that appears on the child’s profile (you can block access through the app management parental controls if you like though). From here, children can download apps straight onto their profile. Some are free but others can be purchased using Kidoz Coins, virtual credits that are bought by parents through the store.

We found it a little confusing when trying to use this - it’s not clear whether you can buy coins for a particular profile or whether these are shared, and also, purchasing and changing the content settings (including the age settings for the apps that appear) is accessible without a passcode through the child profile.

The paid apps range from around 9-54 coins (most cost 10 coins) and start at £3.99 for 50 coins (which works out at around 80p for an average app).

Technical specifications

Display

7 inch capacitive touch screen, 5-point touch

Resolution

1024 x 600 pixels

Chipset

Mediatek MTK8127 Quad-Core

Operating System

Android™ 5.0 Lollipop®

Storage Memory

8GB

Ram

1GB

Camera

Front: 0,3 Mpx / Rear: 2,1 Mpx

Connectivity

Wi-Fi, 802,11 b/g/n - Bluetooth v4.0 - Micro HDMI

Speakers

1 x 1W mono

Languages

Supports multi languages

USB Connection

Micro USB 2.0 - OTG support

Battery

Lithium Polymer battery 2820 mAh

Micro SDHC Card Slot

Add up to 32 GB of extra memory

Conclusion

The specs and performance might not match other tablets on the market, but if a low price and good parental controls are what you’re after, the Kurio Tab 2 can give you them.